


Vixen and the Tod

by Jaydee_Faire



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Execution, F/M, Gen, Graphic Description, Hanging, Implied threat of rape, Imprisonment, Stabbing, Unhappy Ending, Unresolved Sexual Tension, but not by that much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:22:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26021857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydee_Faire/pseuds/Jaydee_Faire
Summary: Milleuda Folles of the Corpse Brigade is brought to justice.
Relationships: Dycedarg Beoulve/Milleuda Folles
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Vixen and the Tod

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CorpseBrigadier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorpseBrigadier/gifts).



> The depiction of hanging at the end of this work is graphic and may not be fun times for everyone.

It wasn’t a proper dungeon. Though the stone steps leading down into where Eagrose’s prisoners were kept were appropriately worn and forbidding-- torchlight flickering on the walls, cobwebs gathering in the corners of each stair-- stepping through the archway at the bottom revealed little more than three small, neat cells. 

The one nearest the door had been converted into a guard post with a desk and a chair and a balding old sergeant that was trying to look as if he hadn’t just woken upon hearing someone descending the stairs. The man looked up at Dycedarg, did a double-take, then scrambled out of his chair, trying to stand at attention, bow, and salute all at once. “My Lord,” he said. “Forgive me, I wasn’t told to expect you.”

“You may go,” Dycedarg said, with scarcely a glance to acknowledge the man’s fumblings. 

“Er--” the man glanced down the row of cells, then back at Dycedarg, then apparently decided it wasn’t worth his job to object. “Of course, my Lord.”

As the old guard huffed his way up the stairs, Dycedarg made his way to the last cell. A pitchy torch lent a smoky, wavering light, enough to illuminate the ragged figure crouched on a rough wooden bench.

“Come to empty the piss pot?” 

“Good evening, Miss Folles.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

“My men would beg to differ,” Dycedarg said, coming to stand before the bars. “I’ve had several reports full of all the things you shouted with the intent that it should reach the ears of House Beoulve.”

Milleuda stood. She’d been stripped of her armor, of anything marking her as a Brigadier. She was left in only a shapeless linen kirtle, bare-legged nearly to the knees. She stepped further into the light, chin high. She boldly lifted her gaze to meet Dycedarg’s; even standing as straight as she was, she barely reached his shoulder. 

“Catching you was no simple task, you know,” Dycedarg said. “No matter how many snares were set for you, you evaded them time and time again, criss-crossing between Gallione and Fovoham and leaving all the Order’s hounds in a tangle behind you. Collecting cold ashes and Chocobo droppings and planting them in the hills to make it seem as though we were only a few steps behind you-- clever. Cleverer by far than your brother, who leaves clear, honest footprints wherever he goes.”

“I’m not telling you where my brother is,” Milleuda said. “If you mean to torture me--”

“If I meant to torture you, I would scarcely come down here carrying a hot poker myself,” Dycedarg said, mouth quirking up. “And as I’ve told you, my men could track Wiegraf Folles blindfolded. Though there really is no need: he’s so desperate to spill his blood for his cause that he will turn and fall on our blades of his own will eventually.”

“Then what use would you put me to?” Milleuda asked. “You took great pains to take me alive.”

“And you labored equally as hard trying to force Zalbaag to kill you. But it was too clear, even to him, that he had only cornered you because you had willed it.”

“Perhaps you aren’t giving your brother enough credit. Didn’t he single-handedly liberate Limberry and save all of Ivalice and cure the lepers? I was outmatched by his glorious, Saint-given prowess, surely,” Milleuda drawled.

“You allowed yourself to be caught,” Dycedarg said, “to give your fellow rebels a chance to escape. You knew you were a much more valuable target than a gaggle of angry, penniless peasants. So you allowed my brother to pursue you inland for a full day and night and then at dawn, when you were certain you’d given your men enough time to flee, you gave yourself up.”

“I see you’ve found me out,” Milleuda laughed. “I was dragged here and forced to suffer clean clothes, a stew made with real meat, and a straw bed all to myself that’s even free of vermin. Truly, I am ready to spill all of my secrets if only you’d spare me further luxuries. What will be next? Please, do not threaten me with my own lady’s maid, I beg of you ser--”

“Knowing what might be done to you,” Dycedarg said, and told himself he took no satisfaction in the minute tensing of the woman’s shoulders.

“I heard you send the guard away,” she said.

“Think you so little of us?” Dycedarg asked.

“Even less, I assure you.” Milleuda held his gaze. “I would rather hang.”

“You will.”

Even then, Milleuda didn’t flinch. “Is that what you wish, then, for me to beg for my life? To offer you bribes, or information, or favors in hopes of clemency? No, I have danced to that tune before, performing for those who had no intention of repaying their debt. I will not dance for you, ser, save my last pirouette at the end of a rope.”

“I would not ask that of you, Ser Folles.”

“Milleuda,” she said. “I was a _child_ when I fought in the war, and there was scarce time to kneel before one of you sods even if I had a mind to.”

“Dycedarg,” he said, though he wasn’t certain why.

Milleuda dropped an exaggerated curtsey that exposed her legs up to her scraped knees. “My lord, you _honor_ me with the knowledge of what name I shall curse in my prayers tonight.”

“Surely a caged rebel has little to say to the highest of saints.” Dycedarg arched a brow. “Well is it known that He doesn’t look kindly on traitors.”

Milleuda snorted. “I’d rather hang than burn. I know how much you’d like the spectacle of putting me to the torch, with a sweet little interlude of torture at the hands of the Inquisitors in the days before.”

“Then you wish to be given your last rite?”

“From whichever poor bastard of a holy man that can be bothered to rouse himself in these small hours and tromp down here to offer communion through the bars,” Milleuda said. “I’ll ask that he read the psalms as slowly as he can, that I might savor them.”

“There are precious few hours before dawn,” Dycedarg pointed out. “It would take longer than that to summon a priest.”

“Well, I suppose there’s no--”

“Fortunately for you, my hands and blade carry the Church’s blessing, if you truly do not wish to carry an accusation of heresy to the gallows.”

Milleuda’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps I don’t care what accusations are piled upon me, if you are the only alternative.”

“Nor upon those who followed you?”

Again, the slightest flicker of emotion, a stilling of her breast as whatever jibe she’d readied froze upon her tongue. “Three women and two men,” Dycedarg went on, watching the reflection of the torchlight in her eyes. “Disguised as tinkers and trying to board a boat bound for Romanda. You were so certain all eyes were on you as you ran rabbit across the hills, but even my brother is not that much of a fool.”

“So you’ll dangle the lives of my comrades before me in hopes of forcing me to… what?” Her gaze dipped briefly before returning to meet his. When she spoke again, her voice had gone flat and ugly. “So even that is something you nobles would take from us.”

Dycedarg laughed. “You mistake me for a simpler man. I don’t intend to spare your soldiers their lives any more than I would spare yours. House Beoulve has nooses enough to bring you all to the end you deserve.”

“Again you try to frighten me!” Milleuda took an angry step forward. “I am not afraid to die, and nor are any of the brigade! Not by the Order’s blades or the Inquisitor’s pyres or the hangman’s noose! Threaten me with whatever you like, I will not cower before you!”

“It is this insistence on rebellion that dooms you,” Dycedarg said. “Had you been content to live your lives--”

“What life had we, scraping dust from the corners of our larder in hopes that it would hold the crumbs of last year’s loaves? We fought for you--”

“--Reparations were offered to you--”

“An amount the meanest beggar would have found insulting!”

“A _hill_ of gold would not have appeased you! You wanted power!”

“The power to steer our own lives, unyoked by the likes of _you--”_

“And the instant you found yourselves idle, you turned to treason!” 

Dycedarg found he had come close to the bars, Milleuda’s face inches away from his own. His voice had risen to a shout to match hers, and the last echoes of it still rang in the hall. Her eyes were blazing, chest heaving, hair a wild halo of copper and gold. Their quarrel had put roses in her cheeks; Dycedarg’s gaze strayed downward and he could see the hammering of her pulse in the delicate hollow of her throat. 

That was all it had taken-- for his attention to waver for just a fraction of a second. Milleuda’s hand snaked through the bars and seized him by the front of his robes, yanking him forward and twisting until he felt the knotted fabric around her fist pressing against his windpipe. His cry of surprise was choked off into a gurgle and she used her other hand to drag him down to her level, teeth bared. 

“Pray thee wait for me at Hades’ gates,” Milleuda hissed. “I shall join you there anon.”

She was a clever woman, and she was expecting him to stab her in the belly beneath her ribs, angling upward into her heart. She would bleed out in seconds and be found dead on the floor of her cell, her white kirtle stained with accusing crimson. A chorus of whispers between the guards and servants would grow into a roar that would set the doors of the Beoulve manse a-trembling, perhaps enough to bring them down. A peasant girl that had learned to make use of every tiny scrap she could find would find a use even in her death.

Milleuda’s expression of pain and betrayal when he sank his blade into her wrist told him how certain she’d been of her plan. Her fingers spasmed, forcing her to release him, and he stepped out of her reach even as she made another vain swipe at him through the bars. 

She screamed, a wordless howl of rage; Dycedarg slid his dagger back into his sleeve just as the sergeant he’d sent away came barreling down the stairs flanked by two guards, swords drawn. One man drove Milleuda back from the bars with the point of his weapon and she gave ground easily, watching Dycedarg with narrowed eyes and tight mouth. 

“My Lord-- are you injured?” The sergeant again, with a linen napkin still dangling from his shirt like a focale. “There’s-- on your sleeve--”

“Wake Alma,” Dycedarg said, striding towards the stairs. “I have a task for her.”

“M-miss Beoulve, my Lord? Why?”

“Because if Zalbaag offers communion to Milleuda Folles, she will spit it in his face.” Dycedarg started his climb out of the cells without bothering to see if the sergeant was keeping pace. “Alma will find all she needs in the chapel. See that it’s done before dawn.”

\----

A good crowd had turned up despite the frigid morning chill and though he could not hear them, Dycedarg could clearly see the open mouths and pointed fingers of people eager to have a poppet on which to paint all the blames of their tiny lives. He stood at the window of his father’s study, looking down at the scene in the courtyard and nursing a glass of wine that would have been too early if he’d actually slept.

When she was led into the courtyard--flanked by two guards and with the black-hooded hangman following behind--the crowd parted before her. She still wore the white kirtle, spoiled by blood, and walked barefoot across stone that must have burned with cold. She moved towards the gallows with head high and eyes forward, even when a chunk of rotten squash, and then a rock, missed her by inches and bounced into her path. It was only when she began to climb the stairs and a broken cobble hit her in the center of her back that she stumbled, going briefly to her knees and then standing again, never looking back.

There was a box in the center of the platform and she stepped up onto it, looking out over the heads of the gathered crowd while the hangman fitted the noose around her neck. One of the guards must have read aloud her crimes; the hangman may have asked for a final statement. Dycedarg’s gaze was fixed on Milleuda, the world narrowing down until her slim frame was enough to fill it. 

The rope went taut and her feet kicked out, trying to regain balance on a surface no longer in her reach. She was deathly still at first, but as the noose dug deeper and her lungs began burning for air she began to struggle, eyes shut tight, toes curling inward. Soon she stilled again, head lolling, feet dangling.

Gallione law said that the condemned were to hang from dawn to dusk, to ensure the deed had been taken to its completion. The best of the spectacle gone, some of the crowd began to drift away. The guards stepped down from the platform, an unpleasant job finished. 

Milleuda suddenly vanished in a cloud of white, the heat of Dycedarg’s breath fogging on the glass. She was there still when it cleared, her once pale face dark with color, body twitching grotesquely. He thought of the knife still concealed in his sleeve, how hard she’d tried to force him to plunge it into her heart. 

The hangman knelt to touch one of Milleuda’s feet, feeling for a pulse. Then he straightened up, pushing back his hood, and stepped down from the gallows himself, breaking into a jog to join the two guards who had nearly reached the edge of the courtyard. 

Dycedarg turned from the window at last, returning to the cold expanse of his father’s desk.

**Author's Note:**

> So I was like, what should I write, and CorpseBrigadier was like, you could write the anti Wiegraf/Zalbaag, meaning Dycedarg/Milleuda, and I was like CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. Then I ended up with this.
> 
> Learn how you can support me or sub to my brand-new (currently content-less) Patreon by visiting jaydeefaire.carrd.co.


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